Overview

Blacksurges are one of the nastiest and most annoying enemies encountered in all the Kingdom Rush games. Like Nazeru, they possess a tower-disabling ability (cooldown 5.0s, duration: 7.5s), which cannot be dispelled and is used faster than the effect wears off, allowing up to four nearby towers to be disabled at once. This ability might quickly topple your defenses and allow other enemies to cross unscathed.

On land, Blacksurges also possess the ability to retreat into their shells if their health drops below 30% (252 / 288 / 360) of their full health, becoming temporarily immune to all attacks except for some instant kills, and regenerating 540 health. To top it all off, Blacksurges already have high physical armor, and this ability substantially boosts their durability, making them extremely hard to kill. Blacksurges cannot use this ability near to an exit or on the sea.

Strategy

The Mecha deals good damage through the armor of the Blacksurge (due to 50% armor ignore of artillery), it can slow the enemy down with Waste Disposal, and, with the Shock and Awe star upgrade for Artillery, stun the Blacksurge several times.

Stunned Blacksurges cannot disable towers nor turn invulnerable.

Blacksurges that have retreated into their shells cannot be stunned.

Assassins with Sneak Attack or Knights Templar with Arterial Strike are all able to deal significant damage to them while holding the Blacksurge for a considerable time, thanks to the enemy's fairly minimal damage output.

Blacksurges can only disable two towers at once, so use this to your advantage. Build Archmages on the back of your defense, where Blacksurges can't disable them, and buy Crossbow Fort's Falconer to boost its range so it can damage the turtles.

If possible, use a hero's instant kill (e.g. Sha'tra's Abduction, Ashbite's Feast...) to quickly get rid of Blacksurges. When a Blacksurge retreats into its shell, it only becomes immune to damage, not totally invulnerable, and thus is still affected by instant kills.

Totem of Spirits is somewhat useful, but most of the time, the tower gets disabled by the Blacksurge before it can cast the Totem, because of its limited range. Similarly, aid it with Crossbow Fort's Falconer to boost its range.

As a matter of fact, silencing Blacksurges will not stop them from hiding in their shells when they lose enough health, it only stops them from disabling towers.

On water, Blacksurge is extremely vulnerable, unable to use either of its abilities, so use this as your chance to lay off damage.

DWAARP's Core Drill is still effective against them. Once Core Drill is deployed, they cannot stop it with their ability.

On some mobile versions, Blacksurge cannot disable the Battle-Mecha T200. The tower base will be immediately re-enabled after being targeted. it was unclear whether the difference was on purpose, or whether it was a bug. In Steam, it will be completely disabled for 7.5s.

On mobile, barrack tower itself are immune from being disabled. On Steam, barracks can be treated as other towers being disabled; the only exception is the soldiers will continue doing their job while the soldiers can't be upgraded, rallied, sold, or respawn until the tower is back enabled.